If you are on Linux or Mac, I would suggest to first try installing nipype with Slicer’s pip (it probably won’t work on Windows). See this post for instructions. Slicer compatibility with the rest of the Python world is still in limbo. Hopefully once we move to Python3 and Visual Studio 2015, we can consider building against miniconda by default.
If you are willing to write your own shell-out routine, there’s no need to introduce a Matlab dependency, Python can do it directly: https://docs.python.org/2/library/subprocess.html